On Saturday, October 2, a large and diverse crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to demand jobs, justice, and education.
Fifteen Jobs with Justice coalitions from Vermont to North Carolina to Illinois sent more than 500 workers, community members, unemployed, and others impacted by the economic crisis to Washington, DC to demand Congress put people back to work. Eleven more Jobs with Justice coalitions participated in solidarity actions in their own cities.
We kicked off the day with a pre-rally at RFK stadium, hosted by the IAM’s Union of Unemployed. Speakers at the rally included UNITE HERE General President John Wilhelm, IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, and Sarita Gupta and Treston Davis-Faulkner of National Jobs with Justice. Gupta told the crowd, “We all have to unite under a banner of fighting corporate greed and taking back America for working people.”
Following the pre-rally, activists gathered on the mall to listen to speeches and
On Saturday, October 2, 2010, hundreds of thousands of people from across the country will gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to help reorder our national priorities so that investments in people come first.
Fifteen Jobs with Justice coalitions from Vermont to North Carolina to Illinois are sending more than 500 workers, community members, unemployed, and others impacted by the economic crisis to Washington, DC to demand Congress put people back to work. Eleven more Jobs with Justice coalitions will participate in solidarity actions in their own cities.
Will you be in DC? Join us! The JwJ meetup spot will be at the Jobs Pre-Rally at RFK stadium 9am-11am. This pre-rally, hosted by the IAM’s Union of Unemployed, will feature a number of labor speakers and allies including CWA President Larry Cohen, IAM President Tom Buffenbarger, and our own JwJ Executive Director Sarita Gupta. The rally will be to the left of RFK Stadium’s Main Gate in Lot 4, close to where most buses will park and the Stadium-Armory Metro stop. Look for our new Full & Fair Employment signs!
Forty-seven years after the 1963 March on Washington, the union movement and our allies are preparing for our own march in October. Under the banner of One Nation Working Together, union members, civil rights activists and other concerned citizens will rally in support of good jobs, a quality education for every child, immigration reform and workers’ freedom to form a union. Our rallying cry is that we must reverse the dangerous trend toward greater income inequality and finally create an economy that works for all.
To achieve that goal and to become a truly united nation working together, leaders of the One Nation coalition partners—particularly our nation’s labor leaders—could learn a valuable lesson from that earlier march on Washington: The road to justice and equality must go through the South.
During the 1963 march, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eloquently illustrated this point when he said:
“Let freedom ring from the mountains of New York… Pennsylvania…. Colorado…. California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia…. from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee….f rom every hill and molehill of Mississippi….let freedom ring.”
On Saturday, October 2, a large and diverse crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to demand jobs, justice, and education.
Forty-seven years after the 1963 March on Washington, the union movement and our allies are preparing for our own march in October. Under the banner of 